A milestone....

Sorry for my poor english..

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I think it's a great movie, inspiring Tarantino, Jim Jarmush, Soederberg, even Lynch ? It reconfigures many things about cinema.

Looking back, it could be related to The Big Knife, (1955) from Robert Aldrich, portraying outlaws talking very much and being fancy. There is involved a lot of film-noir genre but with some distance and much graphic art work : The reflections in windows, or play with the lights and colors. This isn't pure classic, it doesn't focus only on narratives, or emotional content, like classical thrillers. What puzzle me is some sort of smart echoing across the movie, and silent changes..

1) The girls are nudes, then the gangsters have to undress.

2) When the alcoholic loud-speaking writer disappears, suddenly Marlow starts to act like him, insulting cops, and drinking. Some other time, Marlow and Eilen talk while Roger Wade is walking toward the see, amid of the picture...

3) In the hospital, he seems to leave a part of himself in the room, the guy who gives him the harmonica, he says it's him. This isn't meaningless.

Also the somewhat tiresome musical theme, the fact he is isn't stop smoking and saying "it's ok for me", and Miss Eilen disappearing to the end, no "happy" end either, this creates some more distance to the story and incite to search the some meaning beyond the story.

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In the prison he manages to become black, also the print of his hand is viewed 2 times, on the wall and on the window. Lot of symboles

L